U.S. to Shut Down, Modify Chernobyl-Like Reactor

RICHLAND, Wash. — The only U.S. reactor with a design similar to that used by the Soviets at the Chernobyl plant will be shut down for safety modifications recommended by an expert panel, the Energy Department said today.

The six-month shutdown of the reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation will allow the department to make $50 million in improvements, Energy Under Secretary Joseph Salgado said. The shutdown will take place within the next three weeks.

Also today, the Energy Department named Westinghouse Electric Corp. of Pittsburgh as contractor for management work at Hanford. The contract is expected to be worth about $5 billion over a five-year span beginning next Oct. 1.

Three companies submitted bids for the major operations and engineering contract: Bechtel Inc. of San Francisco; Rockwell International Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., and Westinghouse.

Permanent in 5 Years

In addition to the six-month shutdown, the panel’s 88 recommendations included the permanent shutdown of Hanford’s N Reactor within five years.

Two members of the six-member panel recommended that the N Reactor at Hanford be shut down immediately and permanently unless its plutonium is needed for national security, Salgado said. The other four consultants said the reactor could be operated for the next five years if the safety modifications were made.

“N Reactor is a critical and unique facility in the nation’s defense program,” Salgado said. “We do not have the excess capacity in our weapons production system that would allow us to shut down N Reactor permanently at this time.”

The N Reactor is the only one of its kind in the United States to be graphite-moderated and water-cooled, features also used at Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear plant accident. A second reactor in Colorado uses graphite but is not water-cooled.

Lacks Containment Dome

Neither the N Reactor, which produces uranium that is converted elsewhere on the reservation for plutonium for weapons, nor the Chernobyl reactor has the thick concrete and steel containment dome used on most U.S. commercial reactors.

A six-member panel was assembled in May by Energy Secretary John S. Herrington to review safety at Hanford a month after the fire and explosion at Chernobyl.